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2 thoughts on “Godwits, godwits, godwits”

Godwit watcher in for the long haul
The Nelson Mail – Nelson,New Zealand

Working for two months in damp, freezing conditions to monitor birds would not be everyone’s idea of a good time, but for Marlborough Sounds-based ornithologist Rob Schuckard it was a dream come true.

He was with a core group of four, camping in the Yukon Kuskokwim Refuge, a reserve slightly smaller than the North Island, here the bar-tailed godwits breed …

Sadly, the population of bar-tailed godwits is in steep decline, dropping from about 155,000 in the 1990s to an estimated 90,000 today.

Schuckard said seeing and hearing the courtship activities of godwits on the breeding grounds, with their noisy aerial displays, was incredible.

…He arrived in Alaska on April 24, when temperatures were well below 0degC, in time to see flocks of godwits arrive. The first godwits were seen on May 7, with up to 300 birds passing through daily. […]

The bar-tailed godwit, a plump shorebird with a recurved bill, has blown the record for nonstop, muscle-powered flight right out of the sky.

A study being published today reports that godwits can fly as many as 7,242 miles without stopping in their annual fall migration from Alaska to New Zealand. The previous record, set by eastern curlews, was a 4,000-mile trip from eastern Australia to China.

The birds flew for five to nine days without rest, a few landing on South Pacific islands before resuming their trips, which were monitored by satellite in 2006 and 2007. As a feat of sustained exercise unrelieved by sleeping, eating or drinking, the godwit’s migration appears to be without precedent in the annals of vertebrate physiology.

Rural_Determination_summary_KARAC_meetingbook-FINAL-www.doi.gov (pdf file) The material below is taken from the regional advisory council packets. Sections related to rural determination have …Continue reading →